I am an introvert. Not a I prefer to be alone kind of introvert, but a full-fledged my head will explode if I don’t hide in a cave for a while kind of introvert. I love people. I love spending time with people. I have just learned through the years that I need to include, in the rhythm of my life, time to not be around people, to make sure that when I am around people for an extended time, I need to find spaces to step out, so that when I step in, I can bring my whole self, not just my pretend self.
It should be no surprise then that when a friend shared with me her experience of going on a hermitage (just her, her Bible, a journal, and a bottle of wine for 48 hours with no electricity or running water or people) I knew it was for me. A small, isolated cabin in the woods with a basket of fruit, cheese, and bread outside my door each morning-say no more, I was ready to pack my bags.
My first heritage was everything I thought it would be, and everything I couldn’t have imagined it would be. I read. I walked. I journaled, I watched. I listened. I slept. Then I did it all over again, several times each day. It was lovely. I devoured each and every second, though I did forget my bottle of wine (a lesson one learns only once).
I had thought these 48 hours would be a much-welcomed respite from the crazy world I was experiencing within my home and beyond. Silence at home was nonexistent and stillness didn’t even happen in my sleep. Hermitage was my chance to escape from it all. But what I came to realize was that my time in hermitage wasn’t an escape from my life. It helped me reframe my life. The more I listened to God, the more I found myself journaling about the very people driving me crazy. And by the 47th hour I was craving a reentry into my life and relationships with a new outlook. Listening to God in the wind and feeling the warmth of God’s radiance from the sun helped me to once again see my loved ones through God’s eyes.
I am amazed at how much more I hear in silence. Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of work and parenting and living I had forgotten to listen for God. I had forgotten to be still, and KNOW, as the Psalmist writes, that God is God. God moves in the mountains, the water, the cities, the kingdoms, and in our wild, exhausting lives. Yet sometimes we just need to be still, to see and hear God moving in the midst of it all, to remember that listening to God in the silence shapes how we live in the noise. Listen. Listen. Listen.
Peace to you this Lenten season dear friends. May you find places and spaces to be still and KNOW.
